Quick Facts
Biography
Nils Holmer (1904–1994) was a Swedish linguist, whose primarily early focus of study was Celtic languages.
Career
Holmer carried out significant fieldwork into the Scottish Gaelic, in particular the southern dialects of Kintyre, Arran and Argyll and published several key books and articles on the topic. He was professor of linguistics at the Lund University between 1949-1969 and is renowned to be the only Swede to have ever published three articles in the magazine Language.
Unusually, he carried out fieldwork across a wide range of languages across several continents, including Irish, Basque, Siouan languages, Algonquian languages, Iroquoian languages, the Central American language Kuna and the South American language of Choco and Wayuu and Australian Aboriginal languages.